Dr. Livingston Jr. Human Body Floor Puzzle Review

Remember our review of Dr. Livingston's Anatomy Jigsaw Puzzles - Set of 7?  Well, I have another Timberdoodle gem to share with you today, this time it's Dr. Livingston Jr. Human Body Floor Puzzle.  This puzzle contains 100 pieces, is manufactured by Genius Games and is geared for younger students, 6 and older or 1st grade and up.

A peek inside our puzzle box

 

This storage box is great because it easily stores all the puzzle pieces when not in use and I appreciate the Velcro feature as well.

 

I love the included reference sheet.

And the back of our sheet shows fun facts of the human body.

Some of the puzzle pieces

 

Because this set is geared for younger children, the pieces are larger and easier for smaller hands to grip.  I love that they are thick and durable.  I tried to show the thickness in the photo above to give you an idea.  I love that this puzzle shows an accurate depiction of the human body in detail with a 50% magnification.  When assembled our puzzle is 4 feet long!  Children will observe the head, chest, abdomen, limbs, muscles, bones, arteries, veins, etc.

 

G assembling the hand

F putting the final pieces in the abdomen

This is such a great resource to help anatomy come alive or to use with younger students as you study different aspects of the body.  It is such a great visual representation and I love that assembling the puzzle is a very hands-on way of studying and learning.  I do want to note that there are no gender related details shown in this puzzle.

Our completed puzzle!

Above you can see G next to our puzzle, they are about the same size!

And one with both the younger boys :)

 

The Dr. Livingston Jr. Human Body Floor Puzzle is currently included in Timberdoodle's 1st grade curriculum kit and we definitely recommend it!

Disclosure:  Huge shout out to Timberdoodle for selecting me as a Timberdoodle Blogger.  I received Dr. Livingston Jr. Human Body Floor Puzzle in exchange for my honest review.  All opinions are my own.

Activity-Pak: Make-A-State from Home School in the Woods Review

 Disclosure:  I received this complimentary product through the HOMESCHOOL REVIEW CREW.

If you know me, you know that I absolutely love resources from Home School in the Woods.  They are always on point and so great to have in our homeschool.

We have been so blessed to receive their Activity-Pak: Make-A-State for review, which is part of their Hands-on History Activity Paks.  As the name implies, this set provides us with the materials to study every state in the U.S. as well as Washington, D.C.!  There are so many projects that incorporate research, creating writing, coloring, mapping, and so much more.  This is a great resource to pair with U.S. history and is geared for grades 3-8.

 

Our Make-A-State Texas Activity Pak

It seemed appropriate to dive into the state we live in, Texas!  The kids and I have been working through the projects and piecing together our lapbook and I just love the way it is coming along.  I love that the kids are learning and exploring about our state.

 

E enjoyed adding cities and landmarks to our Texas Map.

It was placed on the inside center of our lapbook along with a few other projects.

Our change purse contains a Texas quarter and a bit of information that we researched on it.  We added Velcro to open and close it easily.

I love that there are clear and concise directions for every state activity.  It tells you what to print, what to research and how you will assemble it for your lap book.  Of course you can customize it a bit - if you want to color it, print it on colored paper, include other research, etc.

Likewise, there are fabulous directions for assembling your complete lap book.  It clearly tells you where to place each project or activity and has nice illustrations for how it will come together.  I personally really appreciate all of these instructions as it takes any confusion or guesswork out of this resource!

 

Inside panel of our lapbook, you can see the change purse I mentioned above.

 

Another page of our lapbook!  These activity projects are so fun.

We are still working on our Texas State book but we are almost done.  I am super excited to have the kids work through all the states - it's going to take awhile but it will be so awesome when they complete them all!

If you can't tell, I am a huge fan of this resource and I would definitely recommend it.  You could pair it with your history curriculum as it would make a great hands-on addition, especially when studying the U.S.!

There is also a Printable "Essential Timeline Library" for grades K-12 that is worth checking out.

Be sure to click on the banner below to visit the Homeschool Review Crew blog to read even more reviews of Home School in the Woods resources.

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Farmland Math: Town & Farm Edition Review

I have a fun preschool math program to share with you today from Timberdoodle, Farmland Math (Town & Farm Edition).

What's included in this Bundle?  Our bundle includes a reversible table-top friendly mat, 72 soft rubber vehicle counters, 72 soft rubber barnyard buddy counters and a handbook with a plethora of math activities for your preschooler.  The counters have six different shapes, six different colors (red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple) and two sizes.

 

The barnyard buddy animal counters include horses, ducks, pigs, cows, sheep and bunnies.

Above you can see the different colors and sizes of pigs.

 

The vehicle counters include tugboats, trains, cars, airplanes, buses, and fire engines.

I really like that the mat is durable, foldable and wipes clean easily.  On one side of the mat is a farm scene on which you can use the barnyard counters, while the reversible side is a town scene on which you can use the vehicle counters.

Farmland Math includes 36 weeks of math activities for preschoolers.  It covers various topics including counting from 1-5, colors, patterns, more/fewer, numerals, shapes, logic, comparing, halves, and more!  The math concepts build on each other to help children not forget as they go along.  I have been using this program with G.  I feel like he is really past this in his math ability when looking at the topics above; however, he really enjoys it.  It doesn't take long and it is great at reinforcing early math concepts and solidifying the material.  It really is fun extra practice for him and he absolutely loves the counters.  He enjoys holding them and they are excellent free play items.  Gotta love hands-on resources.  I love watching the younger boys use them in imaginative play and see what they come up with, so fun!

 

Directions for Week 12

Each week has a focused topic and includes both a farm activity and town activity.  You can see above that week 12 is focusing on counting and comparing.  You will also discuss left, right, top and bottom.

Above you can see G following my instructions for the Week 12 Farm Activity.

 

 You can see from above that in week 35, the farm activity involves understanding halves.

And here is G's finished activity after he divided all of the animals between Liam and Annie.

Farmland Math is currently included in Timberdoodle's Preschool curriculum kit.  If you are looking for a fun hands-on math program for your preschooler, this is definitely worth checking out!

 

Disclosure:  Huge shout out to Timberdoodle for selecting me as a Timberdoodle Blogger.  I received Farmland Math in exchange for my honest review.  All opinions are my own.

Timberdoodle Show Me Science: Slime, Crystals & More Review

Our Science Kit

Today I want to share with you a fun product from Timberdoodle, Show Me Science: Slime, Crystals & More!  These experiments are geared to be a bit messy.  As someone who does a lot of science at home (including dissections), we didn't find these activities to be super messy (or maybe I'm used to it 😉).  Our kit includes 30 child-friendly experiments with practically everything we need to complete them (minus an occasional household item like water or a plastic cup).  This kit is specifically geared for students age 5 and older or Kindergarten and beyond.  I have been using our kit with E, F and G (9, 7 and 5 years old).

 Kit contents

What's included?  Our kit includes a test tube holder (holds 4 tubes), 4 small test tubes, 1 large test tube (I think it's more of a bottle), 1 funnel, 1 pipette, 3 Petri dishes, 1 yellow measuring spoon, 1 beaker, 2 stirring sticks, 1 test tube keychain, 20 Litmus paper rounds, 1 purple string, 1 test tube connector, 1 notebook, 1 pack of colored polymer beads, 1 pack of white polymer crystals, 2 food coloring (blue and red), 1 foaming agent pack, 1 purple sweet potato powder, 2 packs of urea, 1 pack of Borax, 1 PVA glue, 1 bottle of glow powder, 1 pack of cornstarch, 1 pack of citric acid, 1 pack of baking soda, several storage bags and 1 instructional manual.

As previously mentioned, our full-color instructional manual includes 30+ STEM experiments with step-by-step instructions to perform with your child or children.

What topics are covered in the experiments?  Students will learn about polymers, the fact that water and oil don't mix, density, PH, acids and bases, slime, crystals, etc.

The first experiment is for students to create expanding beads.  We love water beads so my kids were familiar with this concept but I love that they learned about polymers in the process.  Afterwards, you can shrink the beads back, which is also fun.

 

The kids watching our beads.

 

About polymers...

 

In our next experiment, the kids made crystals and even got to layer them.  They thought their tube looked like cotton candy.

Above you can see the kids with our crystals and layered tube.  We ended up making a lot.

And here you can see the step-by-step directions for this experiment.

 

The kids really enjoyed making the glow-in-the-dark keychain. 

 

Next, we put oil and water together to see if they would mix.

G was surprised because he thought that they would.

Show Me Science: Slime, Crystals & More is currently a part of Timberdoodle's Kindergarten Curriculum Kit and we definitely recommend it.  I super love how easy it makes performing experiments and having everything included and located in one convenient spot makes me so happy 😀.  This kit is a great way to ignite the wonder and love of science in your younger child.

Disclosure:  Huge shout out to Timberdoodle for selecting me as a Timberdoodle Blogger.  I received Show Me Science in exchange for my honest review.  All opinions are my own.

The Starry Night Pixel Puzzle Review

I have something to share with you today from Timberdoodle, The Starry Night Pixel Puzzle inspired by Vincent van Gogh's famous piece!  This puzzle is manufactured by Pix Brix and is geared for children 6 and older.  This is a fun project for one child or can by used as a group activity for many.  If you choose to have a group activity, you can cut the color-coded Starry Night template into multiple sections so more people can work at the same time and then as sections are completed, simply join them together.  You can also have children work on the puzzle one at a time at different times, which is what we ended up doing.  E and A completed most of our puzzle and D helped some too!

What's included?  Our puzzle came with ~ 2,400 pieces in various colors, a color-coded template and a Pix Brix Tool to aid in building (this can help if you have trouble connecting pieces or if your hand gets tired).

A started building the border of our puzzle.

 

 Our puzzle is bigger than the color-coded template so you cannot just build on top of it.  You use it as a guide as you build.

 

Puzzle Progress

 

D taking a turn building our puzzle.

E adding more pieces

If you can't tell, she is having fun!

Our puzzle just needs the final color, medium yellow.

 

Adding the last few pieces

 

 E adding the last pieces...

A close up of E building our puzzle.

 

Above you can get a feel for the shape of the pieces and how they connect.

 

 The Starry Night Pixel Puzzle

 

What the back of our puzzle looks like (for those wondering).

E with our completed puzzle!

I appreciate that the pieces connect completely on their own - you do not need a baseplate, iron, glue, etc.  These unique, single-shape interlocking pieces can be used to build horizontally, vertically, and diagonally - so fun!  I like that this specific puzzle can be reused or hung up on a wall like a painting.

It was so fun for the girls to recreate Vincent van Gogh's "The Starry Night" painting.  This would definitely make a unique and fun gift for that hard to find child.  This puzzle is currently included in Timberdoodle's 4th grade curriculum kit and we highly recommend it - we love hands-on resources!

Disclosure:  Huge shout out to Timberdoodle for selecting me as a Timberdoodle Blogger.  I received this puzzle at a discount in exchange for my honest review.  All opinions are my own.